Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
by KateToast
Summary: Four times Peeta tries to get Katniss to consider having a baby, and one time he succeeds. Before the epilogue.
1. Two Years

_"They play in the Meadow. The dancing girl with the dark hair and blue eyes. The boy with blonde curls and gray eyes, struggling to keep up with her on his chubby toddler legs. It took five, ten, fifteen years for me to agree. But Peeta wanted them so badly." - pg. 389, Mockingjay_

**XXX**

_Two Years Later_

He's been on edge for days. The slightest of noises startle him – more so than usual; he's still trying to get a grip on those goddamn tracker jacker flashbacks. He has a bruise on his backside from falling off a chair when Haymitch drunkenly barged into the house unannounced, marks on his palms from where he gripped the edge of the counter too hard after knocking down a metal loaf pan, and a very bitter cat stalking his steps, still miffed over getting kicked after being mistaken for some other animal sniffing around the house.

Katniss doesn't comment on Peeta's unusual edge, too wrapped up in her own troubles. Peeta doesn't begrudge her lack of sympathy; they're _both_ holding their breaths.

They are twenty, newly married, and not quite yet ready to be parents.

Peeta wants children eventually; even after everything he's been through, everything he's seen and done and lost, he wants a son or a daughter, a perfect blend of he and Katniss, to raise and love. Isn't this what they fought the Capitol for? The end of living in fear for your children's lives, no Hunger Games looming in their wonderfully open futures?

Katniss doesn't see it like he does. She sees dead tributes, dead victors, dead friends, dead sisters, dead dead _dead_, can't look past her hungry upbringing and old ideals of no marriage, no kids. It only took Peeta a year or so to bring her around to signing the paper and toasting the bread. If she relented to that, the kid issue couldn't be too far behind.

"I'm not pregnant," she tells him, after days of stress and worry and, though Peeta won't admit it to his wife, a tiny bit of excitement.

Peeta isn't sure how to feel, so he looks at Katniss. Her body posture has changed; she is relieved, relaxed, and has obviously regained her appetite, because she grabs greedily for some bread Peeta has been slicing.

He decides to go for neutral. "Oh." At her quirked eyebrow he forces out, "Good. That's… good."

"You seem disappointed." She crosses her arms over her chest, already defensive; like she knows they're about to have a disagreement.

"I'm not," Peeta says firmly as he finishes his slicing. Then he puts the knife down and shrugs. "I am a little bit," he allows, looking at her. "I know we're young and we just got married and we're both still pretty scarred" – she snorts at his understatement – "but… would a baby be the worst thing?"

Katniss looks visibly shocked, her body tightening. "Yes," she says. "You know how I feel about this issue. You've known it since day one, and it hasn't changed."

"Even though we're married now," Peeta pushes.

"Even though we're married," she repeats. Her arms uncross, and she holds them out, palms up. "I have never wanted children, and I still don't." Then she softens, letting down her guard, something she only does with him. She takes a step closer and touches his cheek. "I like how it is, just you and me."

Peeta, utterly defenseless to Katniss Everdeen's spell for fifteen years and counting, puts his larger hand over hers. "I like it too," he says. "And I _am _glad we aren't having a baby right now, because I'm selfish and I want you all to myself." That makes her smile and blush; she's getting better with the gooey, mushy stuff.

She kisses him, soft and familiar, and Peeta knows that for now, the topic is done. One day he _does_ want children, _her_ children, and as stubborn as she is on her stance, he is equally committed to his. But right now they are young and haunted and happy, and just the two of them sounds as close to perfect as possible.

**XXX**


	2. Seven Years

**__**_A/N: WOW! Thanks for the great response everyone - the favorites, alerts, and reviews. _

**XXX**

_Seven Years Later_

The years of hunting in the woods have made Katniss amazingly stealthy, even when she isn't trying. Peeta doesn't hear her enter the house, come up the stairs, and slip into their bedroom as he dozes on his morning off. He only realizes she's home from her usual morning walk when he feels her body press against his. Her _naked_ body.

This wakes Peeta right up. He blinks sleepily and grins at his wife, whose face is close above his. She's under the sheet but it pulls down when Peeta rolls onto his side, exposing her bare back, barely covering her butt. He stopped seeing the skin grafts on her body about two seconds after the first time he saw her fully disrobed.

"Good morning," he greets, touching her strong back.

"Morning," she returns, smiling.

"I thought I was sleeping in today," Peeta says mock-sternly. He wakes up at an ungodly hour to bake bread most days.

Katniss takes on an indifferent air. "Nobody said you couldn't."

Peeta laughs, his hand moving down her spine. "How can you expect me to go back to sleep with you here? Like this?" he adds, hand ghosting on her bottom, the sheet now at her thighs.

She kisses him, her body inching closer until she's half on top of him, her bare chest against his. He now has one hand in her hair, untangling the braid, the other still firmly on her butt. He's about ready to ditch his pajama pants, especially since she smells like the Meadow and has such peacefulness about her. Her days spent wallowing on their dark and painful pasts are becoming fewer and farther between, for which Peeta is thankful.

They've been happier than ever in the past few months. Even their most recent visit to District 4 to see Annie and little Finn Odair hadn't much changed Katniss's mood, as those trips usually did. Finn was almost seven now, the spitting image of his heroic father, something Peeta saw as both a curse and a blessing.

One day, down at the beach, Finn and Peeta had been constructing an elaborate sandcastle while Katniss and Annie walked a ways off down the sand. Peeta had been explaining the types of bread that come from each district. Finn had interrupted him, asking quite seriously: "Are you and Katniss going to have a baby? Because I'll babysit sometimes, like Mommy says you did for me when I was a baby."

Peeta, a man always ready with the right words, was speechless. Eventually he'd sidestepped the issue and changed subjects.

He now thinks of Finn's question as Katniss kisses along his jaw, one of her hands skimming his waistband.

"Katniss," Peeta attempts.

"Mm?" she hums between pecks, focused on her task, which Peeta doesn't mind.

"I'd say we're in a pretty good place…"

"I agree," she chuckles, her hand creeping lower.

"I'm not having that many tracker jacker issues anymore, and we have a nice house, and Haymitch finally got his geese under control, and we're financially stable…"

Katniss stops what she's doing and blinks at him, then grows suspicious. "What are you talking about?"

Peeta knows this is a potential mood killer, but he offers it anyway: "A baby."

Katniss keeps staring, and then she rolls off of him and gets out of bed, grabbing her previously discarded garments off of the floor.

"Katniss," Peeta tries, feeling a stab of regret at every piece of clothing she puts back on.

"I don't want to talk about this, Peeta," she says.

"Come on, come back to bed –"

"Why? So we can make a baby?" Katniss zips up her cargoes and then sighs, puts her hands on her hips. "Where is this suddenly coming from?"

"I don't know," Peeta says, leaning on one arm on her side of the bed. "I guess I was thinking about our trip to Four last week, and how good you looked sitting with Finn in your lap, reading him a book."

Katniss shakes her head. "Looking good in a moment isn't a reason to have a baby."

"Don't you love Finn?"

"Of course I love Finn! But Finn isn't our child."

"Exactly!" Peeta says, sitting up. "Think how much you love Finn. Then think how much you'd love _our_ baby."

Peeta can tell his argument is falling on deaf ears. Katniss won't even meet his eyes. "I can't, Peeta. I don't want to. I'm sorry."

Peeta flops onto his back, staring at the ceiling. "Can I bribe you?" he asks, half-joking.

"How?"

"What if I make you cheese buns every day for the rest of my life?"

"I'll survive without them."

Peeta feels the bed dip. She sits at the edge and looks down at him. He thinks he sees just a tiny chip in her resolve, a subtle change in her expression as they stare at each other.

"I'll tell Annie that we'll babysit Finn any time she needs it. We can go visit him whenever you want," she says. "You can teach him everything you know about bread."

That's something Peeta has always wanted to do with his child, like his father did with him. He will gladly be a good male figure for Finn, but _God_, he wants a son of his own, a little boy with dark hair and blue eyes to decorate cookies with, to teach to paint a sunset just the right colors.

For fear of choking up, Peeta decides not to say anything else. Katniss tells him she'll make breakfast.

**XXX**


	3. Ten Years

_A/N: Thanks again to everyone who is reading, favorite-ing, alerting, and reviewing! Much appreciated!_

**XXX**

_Ten Years Later_

"I hate these things," Katniss whispers again. Peeta nods and plasters an overly bright smile on his face as another stranger he should probably know shakes his hand and moves on.

He doesn't understand how these people keep noticing he and his wife standing at the far, far end of the room, facing away from the crowd, their heads leaned in towards each other. It's been ten years since the fall of the Capitol and the galas and soirees and official events have been endless. Plutarch Heavensbee has been beside himself, seeing his years of planning and hard work to commemorate a decade made reality. Peeta spies the man of the hour across the massive dance floor, cheeks red as he sloshes champagne on a guest.

Being two of the key players in the rebels' victory ten years ago, Peeta and Katniss have been forced into a tux and dress, respectively, for practically every occasion, trotted out onto the stage, smiling and waving, as someone makes a speech. Each time he's asked to say something, Peeta thinks of the disaster Victory Tour.

_At least _this_ is real now_, he always thinks as he and Katniss walk off stage, hand-in-hand.

"What I wouldn't give for a nice, quiet walk through the woods right now, huh?" a voice asks behind them, and the Mellarks turn.

Gale Hawthorne has sauntered over, his dark, cropped hair styled nicely, his suit pressed and well fitted. He's smiling conspiratorially, but Peeta notices that his grey Seam eyes rest on Katniss a fraction longer than what may be considered polite. Where Peeta once would have bristled with possessiveness, he now only felt vaguely bad for Katniss's old best friend.

"Or possibly an axe," mutters Johanna Mason, looking stunning in a shimmery forest green dress on Gale's arm. The usual disdainful expression is on her face as she takes in the ballroom. Then her eyes land on Peeta and Katniss. "How many of these things have they dragged you two out to so far?"

"Somewhere in the upper thousands at this point, I think," Peeta jokes. He'd heard Gale and Johanna had broken up again recently; ever the volatile, on-and-off sort of couple, but obviously it once again hadn't stuck.

Peeta watches as Katniss and Gale greet each other, sharing a fleeting hug as Johanna pretends to be indifferent. The once-hunting partners hardly see each other anymore, and Peeta knows they speak only sparingly. Katniss had been surprised back when Annie Odair had informed them that Gale and Johanna had gotten together after working alongside each other in District Two, but Peeta – after the initial shock had worn off – was able to see how the former victor and the rebel strategist could be drawn together.

Gale and Katniss catch up a bit, exchanging family updates, and Peeta glances at Johanna again. She had been standing facing them at first, but now she was turned to survey the loud group a few feet away, and that's when Peeta notices what her shimmery dress had initially hidden.

Which is just the moment Gale puts his arm around Johanna and says, almost shyly, "And, uh, we've got some interesting news…" He half-smiles down at the woman by his side, asking permission, and then looks back to Peeta and Katniss. "We're having a baby."

Peeta takes a few seconds to digest this before surging forward to shake Gale's hand and kiss Johanna on the cheek, and it's good he recovers so quickly, because it takes Katniss twice as long to embrace first her fellow victor, and then her former best friend, and congratulate them in an unnaturally peppy voice.

Peeta catches his wife's eye, but she reveals nothing. When he tunes back in, Johanna is saying: "… At first we really weren't sure, but then we figured, what the hell, you know? If we can't raise a kid now, when can we?"

"Especially with all of this memorial stuff going on," Gale adds. "It just reminded us how hard we worked to have this sort of freedom."

"It's great," Peeta says for the third or fourth time, because Katniss isn't very good at filling conversation gaps. He asks the various appropriate questions (When are you due? Do you want a boy or girl? Any names picked yet? Are you going to stay in Two?) until a politician wanders over, requesting Gale and Johanna meet his friends.

The most Katniss and Peeta discuss this news at the event is after the expectant couple says goodbye, and Peeta says, "Well, isn't that great?" and Katniss replies, "Yes. Definitely."

But by the time they're back in their rented room, Peeta is bursting to talk about it, because he likes to say things and share things, especially with Katniss, and so as she's slipping out of her dress he offers: "So… Gale and Johanna. Parents."

"I fear for the child's life already," Katniss says, rifling through her travel bag.

"They'll be good parents," Peeta defends, folding his slacks. "Gale will be, at least."

Katniss doesn't reply as she throws on a ratty t-shirt and heads into the bathroom, and a moment later the faucet turns on. After folding his dress shirt, Peeta lays down on the bed, listening to his wife wash the detested make-up off of her face. He pictures the way she looks at herself in the mirror after it's all gone, having seen the image so many times before: like she'd forgotten what she looks like in the intervening hours.

He's starting to doze on top of the covers when Katniss reappears, hair braided and face clean. As she pulls back the blankets and slips under, Peeta wonders how it is that she can still look eighteen years old to him, and if he still looks like that to her, even after so long together. He wonders what Gale and Johanna's kid will be like: dark hair, grey eyes, strong, quick. Will he and Katniss's child be like that, too?

Katniss turns so she's curved against Peeta, and he adjusts so that they're wrapped together facing each other, his chin tickled by her hair. "Gale _will_ be a good father," she murmurs. "He had practice, with his siblings."

"I'm sure Johanna will follow his lead," Peeta adds. "They're a good team. Like we are." He kisses the top of her head.

Soon he's drifting off again, and Katniss is breathing evenly. Before he's out completely he thinks he hears her whisper, "We'd be good parents," but he can't say it wasn't in his head.

**XXX**


	4. Twelve Years

_A/N: Thanks, readers :)_

**XXX**

_Twelve Years Later_

"We are _not_ having this argument again, Peeta."

"Who said this was an argument? It's never been an _argument_, because that would involve legitimate discussion, and all I get on this topic is close-mindedness—"

"Close _mindedness_?"

"Not – not close mindedness, exactly, but you never _listen_ to what I'm saying about it—"

"Really? I feel like all I _do_ is listen to you about it these days—"

"That isn't fair, Katniss!" Peeta slams his fist on the counter, his bread dough forgotten. He turns to face his wife, who is standing in the doorway, attempting to make an escape into the chilly woods. She's only managed to get one boot on. "We have been married for ten years, living in this free world we worked so fucking hard for, so that people could live their lives and raise families and be _happy_, and the most I get when I try to talk to you about having kids is no. No, no, no, you won't hear anything."

"I hear you," she says, crossing her arms over her chest. "I just don't think you hear _me_."

Peeta rests his hands on the table, leaning forward, knowing how she gets when he widens his blue eyes. "All I'm asking is if you've ever even thought about it. Just once. Maybe in a dream. Or a nightmare."

Katniss stares at him, anxiety in her furrowed brow. "Of course I've thought about it. I think about it all the time."

Peeta, not expecting this, stands at full height. "What? But then – why –"

"When I was a little girl, I wanted to grow up and have a family just like mine," Katniss says slowly, looking out of the window behind Peeta. "And then – my father died. And my mother lost it. And I had to be the provider, and enter my name as many times as I could into the Hunger Games every year so that we had _something_, and I had to look out for Prim—" She pauses, and Peeta waits. "And I realized that I could never do that to my child. I could never leave it, or abandon it, or lose myself. So it was easier to just plan on _not_ having children."

"Katniss…"

"And then I found you – and I have loved you more – more than anything." Peeta hears how Katniss struggles to say all of this, the awkward stops and starts. For him, she would try to be honest. "So of course I think about our kids. How could I not? But that doesn't change what I've been through. What we've _both_ been through. Neither of us had ideal childhoods."

Peeta concedes that point, remembering the burns on his arms, the welts on his cheeks, his jackhammer pulse when he heard his mother's footsteps. Of course, compared to Katniss, he'd had it easy. "You know our kid wouldn't have to deal with the things we did." He leans back against the counter.

"I know." Katniss slips on her other boot, and then shrugs on her hunting jacket. "I wish I didn't still have these reservations," she admits. "But this is the one thing…"

_That you can't make peace with_, Peeta finishes to himself, biting the inside of his cheek. He desperately wants children, wants to make a family with the woman he loves and grow old and frost cookies with grandkids.

"I'm going to love you forever, no matter what," he says as she slings her bag over her shoulder. "Kids or no kids. But just… for my sake… at least think about it. _Really_ think about it. Please. I'll stop bothering you, I'll stop pushing. I'll stop. But tell me you'll just… consider it, in a real way."

Katniss adjusts her bag and stares at the floor. Then she grabs the door handle and pulls it open. "Okay," she says to the crisp autumn morning, and then glances at Peeta. "Okay?"

"Okay," Peeta repeats, nodding. _Real_, he thinks, like the game he used to play with Katniss and Haymitch_._ _She means it for real. _"I'll have lunch ready when you get back."

**XXX**


	5. Thirteen Years

_A/N: Already the end. Thanks to everyone for reading, favorite-ing, and reviewing!_

**XXX**

_Thirteen Years Later_

When Katniss slips into the woods each morning, she thinks. She thinks about Peeta and the way his strong hands looked holding a paintbrush as she was leaving, the way Haymitch's geese wake her multiple times a night, and how old Greasy Sae's stew will taste with that deer that's nibbling on grass some yards away.

Oftentimes she tries _not_ to think, too. She tries _not_ to think of the way her sister laughed at Lady the goat, or how Gale's steady smile greeted her past the fence every day, or the way Rue was twisted in on herself after the spear had impaled her.

And for the past decade or so, she has tried _not_ to think of a little boy with her dark hair, Peeta's curls, Peeta's eyes, Peeta's smile –

Because she doesn't want that. She hasn't wanted that since she was an uncomplicated girl. She _still_ doesn't want that. Right?

Lately Katniss has allowed herself to spend more mornings in the woods considering the idea of chasing chubby legs across the grass, peals of laughter reverberating off of the houses in the Victor's Village. Since Peeta's plea, months ago now, the walls around her long-ago decision have slowly cracked and crumbled, until only the remaining dust is what gives her pause.

She hears what her husband has been saying – the world is a new place, and kids don't have to kill each other for sport, and food isn't scarce, and neither she nor Peeta are planning on going anywhere – but for years that hasn't been enough, hasn't stopped the what-ifs – _what if Peeta's flashbacks return, what if the new government is overthrown, what if I die, what if _he_ dies and I can't go on and it's my parents all over again_ –

But recently, in the woods, when she pictures little hands and the what-ifs bombard her and she's ready to give up entirely and stalk home and tell Peeta that she is _never_ going to change her mind and he'll have to deal with it or divorce her – she hears his voice, his calm, familiar voice, quelling all of her fears, one by one, until the last stares her in the face: _What if I'm a terrible mother?_

And one morning, the day Katniss thinks about the way his boy-with-the-bread-calloused hands held that paintbrush so delicately as she was leaving, she hears his answer to this worry, too, as clear as if she'd just asked him: _You won't be._

On the walk back home, Katniss thinks of the way Johanna Mason had been with she and Gale's two-year-old the last time they'd visited, nurturing and supportive and so different from her usual brash and tough demeanor (which she had still displayed quite fiercely once the little one was off playing with some sticks). If Victor Johanna Mason from District 7 could be so good at parenting with Gale's help, couldn't Katniss be at least passable alongside Peeta?

She meanders through the Meadow, the late-summer sun trekking towards its noon position. As she passes through town, her normal route to walk home, she imagines a little boy or girl beside her, maybe holding her hand. They'd stop in front of shops and peer into the windows, and Katniss would lift him or her up so they could have a better look at the things behind the glass. They'd practice good manners and wave to friends, and they'd stoop down on the sidewalk and look at the little flowers sprouting in the cracks. And when they neared the famous Mellark Bakery, the little child would tug free of Katniss's hand and run for the open door, and by the time Katniss got inside, Peeta would have lifted their child into his strong baker's arms, mirror smiles on their faces.

Katniss has reached the bakery, in fact, and looks inside – her husband is chatting animatedly with customers across the counter. He hands a delicate pink cookie to the woman, a special treat he created himself, airy and sweet – a Primrose.

He catches her eye as she stands in the doorway watching, sends her a grin. She half-smiles back, knows that her arrival will prompt him to close for an hour's lunch. She'll wait until the sign is up to tell him what she's been thinking about all day.

**XXX**


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